The Beginning

I am finally starting something I have wanted to do for years! A Blog, a Journal, call it what you will, it is my thoughts, feelings, highs and lows all in one place. I am starting this now because of a shocking event that just recently happened. A new friend of 2 little girls was killed in a car accident, in an intersection that I travel through every time I go into town.

I met her at the beginning of this summer at a La Leche League meeting that I run once a month. She had just moved here because of divorce and she was staying with her parents while getting back on her feet. Emily, and her 2 girls, Ava and Audry were friends almost instantly. We had a few big things in common. We both were tandem nursing, the kids being pretty close to the same ages, which is not very common, and I had lived with my in-laws for 9 years and know the joys and challenges of parenting in a multi-generational home.

So, the other mom at the meeting, Christy, and I invited her to join the local AP (attachment parenting) group so she could meet more moms. We would send an invite and get her connected. Well, of course things are always busy when you have kids and neither of us got it sent out. I felt so bad, I always do when I forget something like that, but when I did remember I couldn't find her info! When I saw her at the meeting the next month I told her how sorry I was and got the info again. She was so sweet about it. I got it sent that night so I wouldn't forget this time (lesson learned)! Now she was connected to some other moms and I hoped that she would find some good friends, me included.

I think it was about then that I started to go to town with my husband on Sundays and drop him at work so we could have the car and be able to go to church. That meant that we would be in town for about 12 hours. We needed things to do. I thought of Emily, I had told her that I come to town sometimes and have lots of time to play, so we could get together. I let her know and we planned to get together.

That Sunday at the park was so fun! The park we met at has a water play area with jets of water for the kids to play in, and it was great to watch our kids play together, along with Katie and her 3 little ones. We shared snacks, we talked and we tried to stay cool! When the little ones were all tuckered out we packed it in and talked of doing it again the next week. I was so happy we had finally gotten together outside of LLL.

Sadly that was the first and last time we would get to do it. The following week she past away. I didn't even know for about a week and a half. I posted about the park for that next Sunday, but when I got there no one was there. I just thought, maybe the girls are sick or she is too busy this week, we will see her soon. The news of her passing has rocked me to my core!

I don't know why exactly. Maybe because I feel like I didn't get to know her enough, because I was too slow to reach out and invite her to get together, because her girls are still nursing like my boys and I can't imagine what they would feel if I were gone, how would they go to sleep, who would be with my kids all day if it wasn't me, or maybe even the fact that I lost my mom when I was just 14 and I know some of the things the girls will go through! I guess I feel some what silly for being so attached to someone that I had not known for very long. However, she was a great person and she will be so missed be me, my heart is very hurt and sad.

All this brings me to the point I am at, a great desire to make something positive from this big negative. I am already a change person from this, but I want to become the mom I have been trying to be for 10 years. It has reawakened the fact that nothing is a given, God's plan is not known to us, and we won't have that chance to say the last "I love you" or give that last kiss, or even take back the mean things we said. I feel like I want to make each day, even each moment with my kids and husband a great one. So even if it is the last, I pray it will be one of laughter, smiles, and great times, and not to be about the little bothersome things that usually make me grumpy. Toys all over the floor, an attitude from the preteen girl, or dog pee on the carpet, they just don't matter! Of course they have to be dealt with, but I have this habit of letting them stick with me for the rest of the day, just ask the husband who leaves the paper spread all over the living room! I just feel this new determination to make these days fun and happy, with the amazing people, little and grown, that I have been blessed with.

It is not just because I might not be here tomorrow, but also because the little part of them, most surely, will not be around for long. Leslie is 10 already (which makes me feel old) and about half of our time living in the same house (give or take a few years) is gone already! It is truly what those grandma ladies always say when you talk to them at the store or waiting in line, "it goes so fast". It can feel like I have been a parent forever, but also there are times when I feel like a newbie and that I just got started with all this!

So here I am blogging this. What, you might say, does blogging have to do with a friend's passing? Well, I feel like I need to keep some sort of written journal, so that when I am old and gray, God willing, I can look back at these times with my children and grandchildren, and laugh at the fun things, cry at the sad things, and let them remember where they come from. The little things in life make us who we are. The things we will do together, yummy cookies we make, the cool craft project, or the dance party started by Leslie, that lasted all evening and ended in the dark with glow sticks, rave style, are things I want my kids to have memories of. I just not make it to be old and gray so having it written down is my way of still being here even if I am not.

I know I would love having my moms memories written down somewhere, so that those times I need her most, I could go and have some piece of her personality, some sense of who she was.
So I do this for my Kids and in honor of Emily and her precious Baby girls, I know they would have wanted something like this from their Mommy.